Solar Cell Inventor Wins Millennium Prize 147
adeelarshad82 writes "The inventor of a new type of solar cell won the Finnish state and industry-funded, €800,000 ($1.07 million), Millennium Technology Prize. According to the foundation, Michael Graetzel's dye-sensitized solar cells, known as Graetzel cells, could be a significant contributor to the future energy technologies due to their excellent price-performance ratio."
Decrease, not increase (Score:3, Insightful)
I still think we should decrease our use of energy, instead of inventing new ways to increase its production.
Dr. Pekka Paisti
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right. And naive.
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Interesting)
I still think we should decrease our use of energy, instead of inventing new ways to increase its production. Dr. Pekka Paisti
You are right. And naive.
Hmmm, what a funny two first posts. Both are totally correct, yet at polar opposites.
Yes, we should decrease the amount of power we use. I totally agree, yet, the chances of getting the average consumer to actually do so, keep dreaming. As long as people keep coming up with power hungry devices that people want (read: air conditioners, plasma TVs, faster PCs and just about every other imaginable device), people will in fact keep buying them. Will they pay vastly larger sums for them if they are power efficient? Unlikely, some might, most won't. Will they put up with lower/smaller/decreased functionality? Again, some might, most won't.
I totally support using less power (my own electricity bill for example comes from 100% wind energy, which costs a good deal more than normal coal fired here in Australia) but I welcome any steps that are taken to make the overall impact of the "sheep consumers" less on the environment.
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Insightful)
You're actually wrong. The sort of people who are upgrading computers and plasma screens (North Americans, Europeans and similar) are actually not increasing their per-capita energy use each year. They're the same people who are upgrading their insulation, light bulbs, etc.
All the increases in energy use is from the global poor, the people who are just now acquiring computers, light bulbs and cars. And I know that orthodox environmentalists disagree with me on this, because they're assholes and want the destitute to stay destitute, but I say that it is a good thing that the world's poor are using more energy. A life with any reasonable standard of living is necessarily going to involve some significant energy use, and if we want people to escape from poverty (and the non-assholes among us do), we have to welcome this.
Those of us who waste energy should cut down, but not to the point of making ourselves poor. And since that won't save nearly enough energy to allow to poor to escape poverty, what we need is a lot more energy. I would guess at least 10 terrawatts more. It's that simple. Solar will help.
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but the engergy used to produce those new gadets are not taken in to the calculation, is it? Also, a lot of the people by more new gadgets instead of upgrading for a more energy efficient place at home. Your statement is valid for some, for others, not at all.
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As you point out at the end - the thing is that, well, "our" places can still go a long way to improve efficiency - it's not that hard to find two developed countries with basically the same standard of living, but the difference in total resource usage amounting to doubling (overconsuption, also of gadgets, is art of that too, btw). And even the "better" one can surely improve, too...
More generally - it's not a good thing if the poor of today will make similar mistakes. We have to welcome wiser energy pro
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Obnoxious ending aside, parent is right, and not a troll. The assertion that the rich world is not increasing its energy consumption pretty much flies in the face of the fact that it keeps building energy generators - be it dams, wind turbines or coal-fired plants. I'd like to find a citation that shows that the people who upgrade their plasma screens also improve their insulation. I doubt there is one, because most Americans have not heard squat about insulation. Even something as basic as a double-pane wi
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I'd like to find a citation that shows that the people who upgrade their plasma screens also improve their insulation. I doubt there is one, because most Americans have not heard squat about insulation. Even something as basic as a double-pane window is rare anywhere but the extremely cold areas.
Well, you should stop watching MTV and VH1 and poke your head out your front door occasionally. People that have to pay their own power bills are all over things like better insulation and double pane windows. Plastic sheeting on windows. Weather stripping. The list is huge. We don't do it to make way for the poor of the world to join us. We do it to try to avoid joining THEM.
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Sigh. Why don't you guys use Google? How about the first result?
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=eg_use_pcap_kg_oe&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=energy+use+per+capita [google.com]
This graph shows that American energy use has stayed roughly the same since 1972, and definitely the same since 1988.
In fact, click on the other countries and you'll see a lot of flat lines. Even the world usage is pretty flat. You have to click all over to find countries that are diagonal lines (steady in
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> I'd like to find a citation that shows that the people who upgrade their plasma screens also improve their insulation.
Refrigerator efficiency has increased threefold since 1972. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/25opec/sld026.htm [doe.gov]
It should also be noted that there are often large tax incentives offered to people who upgrade existing equipment/insulation to better levels. And all new homes here are built using double paned windows and other features because otherwise the cooling costs during summer are ridiculously high.
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Yes, we should decrease the amount of power we use. I totally agree, yet, the chances of getting the average consumer to actually do so, keep dreaming. As long as people keep coming up with power hungry devices that people want (read: air conditioners, plasma TVs, faster PCs and just about every other imaginable device), people will in fact keep buying them. Will they pay vastly larger sums for them if they are power efficient? Unlikely, some might, most won't. Will they put up with lower/smaller/decreased functionality? Again, some might, most won't.
I disagree. If you look fuel consumption in cars, you will notice that in the last 20 years, they consume LESS fuel, have MORE power, safety and luxury. Are they so much more expensive than they were 20 years ago? I don't think so.
LCD screens consume less power, are more space efficient and have less negative health effects than their CRT equivalents. (though some purist may say there is loss of quality as well). CRT TVs the size of the average TV sold nowadays would be vastly more expensive not to say t
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It all depends on the size. A lot of people went from like 27 inch or 32 inch CRTs to 60" monsters. The truth is somewhere in-between.
An equivalent-sized LCD will use less power than a CRT. Going from a 32 inch CRT to a 31.5 inch LCD flat panel will save you around 50% or so in electricity usage. Going from a 32 inch TV to a very efficient 46 inch LCD will save you a littl
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I actually measured energy usage when I replaced my TV.
Oddly enough, my 32" decade old energy star CRT TV used both less energy total AND per square inch of screen than my brand new 42" Energy Star rated TV.
The only time The CRT used more power is that it used about half a watt when 'off' but plugged in compared to not measurable for the LCD.
Apparently CRTs don't have to use a lot of power.
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>CRTs max out at around 200 Watts
So do LED's. Here's a 55inch Samsung, 80-190 watts, depending on program source.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/technews/147387/samsung-led-tv-b7000 [bangkokpost.com]
Maybe you shouldn't buy Sorny. I saw a 120hz Sorny the other day, looked like shit, way too hyperreal (and I've been warned that 120-240hz has this problem, too.)
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I'd like to know more about PV that's "dye sensitised". Coming from an old-skool photographic background
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:4, Informative)
I live in a cold climate - it is use energy or freeze
actually, Investing in insulation is ten times cheaper than buying energy. a passive house has been build in very cold climates.
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Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Informative)
You're over-simplifying things.
There is an optimum in every climate. Here's how it works:
You choose a certain period. Say, 30 years.
You check the price of the energy. You check the price of different kinds of insulation.
Insulation is a one-time investment, energy costs money all the time. You check which is the cheapest after 30 years.
In many houses an investment in insulation is worth the money and will pay itself back. But in some cases, the quality of the insulation is already such that it's just too expensive to add even more insulation to save those few euros/dollars/whatevers in energy.
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and when gas/oil runs out ? how much will the price for energy be ?
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Insulation is a one-time investment
Attic insulation tends to settle, decreasing the size of air pockets, and decreasing efficiency. The solution is usually simply to dump more insulation on top of the old. Granted, this usually only needs to be done every decade or so, but there is a certain amount of upkeep associated with insulation.
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Interesting)
Investing in insulation is ten times cheaper than buying energy. a passive house has been build in very cold climates.
Investing in insulation is only 10X cheaper than buying energy if you don't already have a significant amount of insulation.
Let's take a house, generic. Let's disregard doors, windows, or perhaps we assume that we upgrade them as well.
The house, with NO insulation, costs Y energy to keep warm.
With X insulation, it costs Y. If X is 1000 and Y is 1000/year,
With 2X insulation, cost is Y/2, That next 1000 makes Y 500, and your payoff of the extra insulation is 2 years.
With 4X insulation, cost is Y/4, the marginal return on the second 2X amount of insulation(costing 2000) is 250, payoff is 8 years.
With 8X the insulation, cost is y/8, or 125 saved. For 4k cost. With a 32 year payoff without cost of capital, you're better off investing in the energy company; a decent return will pay your remaining bill perpetually.
Now, yes, the formula is more complicated - 8X the money spent on insulation won't actually get you 8X the insulating values, especially in a refit scenario - you have to make the walls thicker at that point, and maybe even raise the roof. There are practical limits on windows and doors, especially when you open them. There's also a certain amount of 'free' heat that is generally available. Every person is like 100 watts just sitting there. You need a certain amount of fresh air flow.
And I say this as a libertarian survivalist type who likes the idea of not being dependent upon the grid. I just acknowledge that there are costs that don't make financial sense. Call it being warped by my upbringing - both my parents are accountants. I was doing cost of capital analysis before I knew what it was called. ;)
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Thats what I did on my house, I bought a cheap house and doubled down on improvements, insulation, windows, tankless water heater (best thing I've ever bought in
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but you may have more cash on hand each month from having a power bill 4x lower.
I'll note that what I was trying to say was that, at some point, adding more insulation doesn't make financial sense.
If you're spending $200 more a month on a 20-30 year note, when you drop your electricity bill by $300, obviously it was worth it.
On the other hand, would it be worth it if you tried to drop it to $0? Probably not, at that point it'd probably cost you another $400/month for that level of improvement.
Lowering your monthly expenses in the form of Capital investments is a good long term strategy.
Very true. But when I'm paying $900 a year to heat my house, $0 to cool it, does it really m
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>But when I'm paying $900 a year to heat my house, $0 to cool it, does it really make sense to put $15k of improvements in to drop my heating bill to $500?
Interesting. But keep in mind that people pay a 30-year mortgage to either keep the house or sell it. Either way, the improvements will stay.
Also, heating costs are likely to rise in the short term (remember $4/gal gasoline?) And with an efficient house, you can afford to waste more (i.e. greater comfort).
I'm saying that if you calculate a nearly bre
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Interesting. But keep in mind that people pay a 30-year mortgage to either keep the house or sell it. Either way, the improvements will stay.
The break-even for my example is 37.5 years. Using a simple interest formula I'd pay $750 in interest at 5% to save that $400. It's not break even, it's negative. When energy rates rise again, I'll recalculate.
Basically, if a simple no interest payoff isn't within 12 years, it's not generally that good of a deal. If it's not within 15 years, you're going to have to look hard at it.
I'm saying that if you calculate a nearly break-even proposition on a long-term improvement, then you've already calculated that you won't be losing huge sums in the process.
Which is why I do SOME improvements. My 'no-interest' payoff needs to be within 12 years though. My capital discount rate
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A "passive" house does not address washing. Not washing clothes, washing yourself or washing dishes. Not even flushing toilet.
You cannot recover all (most?) the heat in those as the exit temperature must be well above zero (and input temperature of water is close to four degrees C. The question 'why four' is left as an exercise to the reader).
Besides, a "passive" house does use energy to heat itself up, in Finland 4000kWh per year (for 150m2 house) is allowed for passive energy house, I bet the value is for
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Over the last two winters here in SE Michigan, I've found that by opening and closing windows drapes at rational times to maximize solar gain has frequently cause my home to be a warm 21C, (72F) while the thermostat was set at 18C (64F). While my home isn't optimized for solar gain or heat retention, I imagine that if it were, my heat energy use would be quite small.
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> As for wind, if you look at the spikes, you still depend on coal or hydro for supply stability
Or gas peaker plants. Wind + solar + gas + hydro can give us all the power we need.
We can reduce the amount of gas we need by improving the grid, allowing us to time-shift east-west, and season-shift north-south. Toronto, for instance, uses more power in the winter, when solar panels in Texas and Nevada are pumping out unused watts.
Maury
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I live in a cold climate - it is use energy or freeze.
Or you could move. There are a lot of places in the world that don't require energy to not freeze.
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My plasma and electronic gizmos heat is not wasted one bit.
On average, for every watt of electric power delivered to your house, 2 more watts goes up the smokestacks and cooling towers of your power plant. Those 2 watts are still wasted. (That's why the only cost effective way to heat with electricity is a heat pump, which delivers multiple watts of heating for every watt of electricity consumed.) If, OTOH, you used a modern gas furnace to get that same heating, you'd waste less than 10% of the energy in the fuel source.
Running power hungry appliances to create hea
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On average, for every watt of electric power delivered to your house, 2 more watts goes up the smokestacks and cooling towers of your power plant. . . . If, OTOH, you used a modern gas furnace to get that same heating, you'd waste less than 10% of the energy in the fuel source.
I'll grant that using gas heat is typically much cheaper than electric heat, where gas is available. But you're emphasizing the excess energy needed to produce electricity and ignoring the energy costs of production and transport of the gas.
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Ok, but also can't ignore the energy cost to produce and transport the gas, coal and/or uranium to the power plant to generate the electricity. It probably comes out similar to that of delivering gas to your house, so it's not really an issue specific to gas heat.
What I was originally talking about was the excess energy needed to produce electricity due to the laws of thermodynamics as they relate to heat engines. That assumes that the fuel is already available at the power plant. Factoring in additional en
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>Lucky I have a wood fireplace.
Burning wood smells terrible. You should try coal (seriously). Lot less maintenance too. A coal furnace will burn for hours unattended. Keeping a fireplace going is like a full-time job.
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Why would you advocate wasting time and money on the effect (energy usage) rather than the problem (production of energy) . Simple fact of the matter is energy usage is going to get bigger and bigger regardless of how little we use it individually.
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Well yeah, when it comes to advocating something over something else you can't do both... what was your point?
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Oh, advocating. I thought we were talking about actually doing something.
My bad.
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, I love how people say that we can simply reduce usage over building new power plants, then turn around and rave how electric cars are going to solve all of our problems.
The 'average' household uses something around 700-1400 kwh a month.
The 'average' electronic vehicle gets about 5 miles to the kwh, and the average vehicle is driven around 10-15k miles a year.
Don't forget that the average household is 2 cars today.
So, you're looking at probably around a 22% increase in electricity usage if people go to EVs. You just can't reduce energy usage that much via other means, especially when you also have 5% growth in population/households on top of it.
Still, I salute the inventer in the op, because he's, well, actually addressing the problem. The moment I can make solar panels make sense in a cost-benefit analysis is when I recommend all my relatives in Florida get them.
I'm moving to Alaska(work), so they'd probably still have to come down in price another 50% before they'd make sense for me.
Until I was informed of my exciting new opportunity, I was looking at a wind turbine for the small town I live in - because a turbine big enough to power a town costs a lot less per watt of capacity, and by reaching higher has steadier wind, resulting in lower costs when you factor the cost of the turbine into the cost per kwh it produces. Small $10k turbine = 5k kwh per year, expensive. $1M turbine = 1M kwh per year, much better. These figures are example only. Actual production is so location dependent it's hard to put proper figures on.
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:4, Insightful)
And around a 100% reduction in the use of gasoline. You see, that's why it's called a cost-BENEFIT analysis.
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Notice I mentioned such analysis when it comes to solar panels?
I use the 100% figure mostly as an example. For one, it's easy to scale.
Due to my using the high end of energy figures, my 22% number is low end. 36% would be closer for a true '100%' replacement.
Still, if you figure on 10% of vehicles being EV, you'd better figure on increasing electricity production 2.2% to cover it.
And when major electricity plants take longer to build than the average car lasts, we need to plan ahead.
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Small $10k turbine = 5k kwh per year, expensive. $1M turbine = 1M kwh per year
This is something far too many wind power enthusiasts forget, thanks for pointing it out.
Actually situation is likely even more against small turbines, not only is bigger cheaper to build, it is cheaper to maintain.
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Actually situation is likely even more against small turbines, not only is bigger cheaper to build, it is cheaper to maintain.
Getting similar figures can be difficult as well; finding out how much a big turbine will cost can be difficult, while small turbine prices are easier, they're for the turbine only, not including install costs.
I seem to remember the small turbine I looked at costing so much that even applying an assumed production factor of 70% of faceplate, at 5% cost of capital I'd be better off investing and buying electricity at retail with the interest.
Meanwhile, a large turbine seems to install for around $1-2/watt, a
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The 'average' household uses something around 700-1400 kwh a month.. . . So, you're looking at probably around a 22% increase in electricity usage if people go to EVs.
Not quite that much, as average households are not the only users of electricity.
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Not quite that much, as average households are not the only users of electricity.
The figures I used for that number is actually for housholds only; I have all electric appliances except for building heat and use ~1000 kwh a month.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp#electricity_use_home [doe.gov]
920 kwh/month nation wide for a 'US residential utility customer'.
Tennessee was highest at 1302, Maine lowest at 521 kwh/month.
I still wonder if I have something using way more power than it should, but I've gone around with the meter and haven't found anything.
Looks like I overestimated househ
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1) Upgrade the power grid (T [npr.org]
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Wow, was mostly just wailing on people who harp *exclusively* on reducing power demand.
This is perfectly within our means, provided big oil and auto makers are unsuccessful at stonewalling these initiatives (which they are desperately trying to do through their mostly Republican congress critters). The auto-industry relies on planned obsolesence, which is much more difficult to hide using simple electric engines that can last for decades.
I agree with the electric motor - the things just shouldn't quit. Might actually help out the custom interior people; cheaper to refurbish the inside than to replace the whole vehicle.
Still got a lot of work to do on the batteries though.
Personally, I love nuclear, agree with fixing up the grid, and think the problems with EVs can be fixed, but I think that most of the work still remains in the lab, not in deployment. I
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Dear Paisti, Increasing the performance of energy production and decreasing use of energy can both be goals at the same time.
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Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why? You mean that making babies costs lots of energy?
...oh wait, it does.
On a more serious note: nice overview of the energy <-> population issue here [ted.com] (by none other than our beloved mr. Gates).
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Actually...I may have a.. modest proposal along these lines.
- J. Swift.
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone seems to have the same idea as yours, but they don't seem to agree upon whose babies.
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:5, Funny)
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Wrong.
We need to stop using cellphones unless we actully need them, we need to restart gathering for telling stories in the evening in stead of watching TV, we need to forbid any kind of personal cars and force people to use bikes (what, are you really going to tell me that a car is faster than a bike in a big city? be serious), we need to stop wasting paper for stupid bureaucrats and use computers for what they were built for, we need to stop playing chess and other cardgames online and restart doing it wi
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It seems to me that you've eliminated the tiny ongoing costs of modern conveniences without doing anything about the infrastructure costs.
When I lived too far, I took the subway.
Huge infrastructure already in place, all the pollution to create and install the cars and track are already sunk. All you're avoiding is the tiny amount of energy your additional weight incurs.
I don't print anything unless someone else requires me to...
The printer and toner are already manufactured and the printer is plugged in con
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Well, manufacturing cellphones does take a bit, though - and many people are to obsessed with replacing their perfectly good old ones, which too often end up in the drawer (to be fair, that's also a result of carrier policies here and there)
And really, biking is not as hard as you think (there are spiked tires btw). If it becomes too hard, sometimes, then there could be always an option of public transport/etc. ...which you don't have because you set your place like that, you let lobbyists of automobile mak
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More Education, More Energy (Score:3, Interesting)
In order to decrease our use of energy, or atleast to have any chance of doing it at all, we need to stop making babies.
The only proven way to do this reliably is with education. To get people educated, they require an above-subsistence level of prosperity first. To get there, they must harness energy.
We have plenty of energy. From solar to wind to hydro to nuclear (plus efficiency gains), there's no reason to not increase our total energy usage. Just responsibly getting rid of our nuclear waste would p
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The only civilised and working way of reducing birth rate is assuring good standard of living and social security (in whatever form that works, let us not get into the favorite implementation method here). So the trick is to do that in a way that produces and uses energy efficiently, with as small impact as possible.
And apart from finding new tech, we have lots of headway to improve efficiency... [wikipedia.org] (which is simply the logical thing to do - think about it as putting your progress ahead with the same amount of
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMEe7JqBgvg [youtube.com]
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How can you stop doing something that you already are not doing?
For example you have to start smoking to able to stop smoking.
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Not Either/Or (Score:2)
I still think we should decrease our per-capita energy usage and invent new ways to increase its production.
Dr. Wenka Gumi
Re:Decrease, not increase (Score:4, Insightful)
Then increase the price. That's the only way.
The problem is that the practical effect of this falls disproportionately on the poor (as do the negative effects of current energy production). The wealthy have to adjust the distribution of their investments -- an inconvenience. The poor have to endure cold, give up that job that's too far to walk to, cut back on food which has become more expensive.
Let's say the price of energy doubled overnight. A lot of us would lose our jobs as investments were shuffled around. But for those of us who didn't lose our jobs, we wouldn't go without. We'd have food, heat, transportation. We wouldn't stay home during vacation. We'd alter our use of energy by changing the kind of car we bought next time around, or keeping our thermostats set differently. We might go to one place instead of taking a driving vacation. In the short term the low inflation caused by lost employment would blunt the impact of the price increases, and in a few years we wouldn't even notice the difference.
I'm all for conservation through tax credits, incentives, even carbon taxes with provisions for blunting the impact on people who will feel it the most. But we've had all our energy eggs in one basket for the last century: cheap oil. Moving some or even most of those eggs to the conservation basket is a good idea, but we can't do it overnight and we certainly can't move all of them.
What's the "right" amount of energy to consume? That's a meaningless question when asked in isolation. You need to ask "for what" and "from what sources" and "with what impact?" Clearly the answer for fossil fuels, given their externalized impacts (pollution) and future availability (dwindling) is that we should be using less of them. But conservation is no more a panacea for our energy problems than nuclear power is.
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Simple solution to the downside of expensive gas: create a public transportation system that works. You can even fund it from a nice gas tax. Kinda like Europe does it. It's pathetic that the only places with a public transportation system that is worth taking is NYC and Boston.
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We can mitigate this with tiered pricing. e.g. Your first X kw/hrs are subsidized below market price. Anything over X is taxed in order to pay the subsidy. Rich people with big houses who pollute more end up subsidizing the frugal energy users who are disciplined enough to keep their energy use down. PSNH already does this at my parent's place in NH.
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There are a few problems with this. Transitioning to such a state is trick
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The problem is not energy use, it is the unintended consequences of producing energy from carbon and other toxic sources. As an example, we could use as much energy as we wanted from solar since that is only transferring energy from on site to another. Solar energy is captured in one place and released in another (usually within a very
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I still think we should decrease our use of energy, instead of inventing new ways to increase its production.
Why? Save for the production process (which this guy made easier and cheaper per watt), solar energy contributes zero to the net energy in the ecosystem. The sun's going to beat down on my roof anyway. If I can transport some of that energy to where I can conveniently use it, why shouldn't I?
where can I buy them? (Score:4, Interesting)
Have this guy's solar cells left the lab yet?
I searched around and the achievement of creating a low cost solar cell is great, but I couldn't find anywhere you can get them from. Since he's been doing this since 1991 (?) I'm guessing they'd have come to market by now.
One site I saw listed it as being 100W m2 but having a price to go along with it would be good for comparison with other solar cells.
Re:where can I buy them? (Score:4, Informative)
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Well the point others are trying to make is that if you suddenly ramp up demand for a somewhat rare material that just happens to be cheap today because no one is utilizing it, you'll see a jump in price corresponding to the jump in demand. It could be huge if the demand outstrips the ability to actually acquire the material quickly.
Re:where can I buy them? (Score:4, Informative)
> Have this guy's solar cells left the lab yet?
In some small applications, yes, but nothing serious. There are several reason:
1) the electrolyte is a liquid. It loses efficiency in cold weather, and eventually stops working.
2) well before that limit, expansion and contraction is a serious issue and large-scale structures have problems with sealing and leakage.
3) the electrolyte dissolves silver. It can be used for small-scale systems where the cost of platinum is not a major factor compared to construction costs, but for large low-cost solutions silver is the only practical solution.
4) the solvents used to mix the dye with the TiO degrade plastics.
None of these is unsolvable. It just needs another decade of work. I install mSi panels now, I suspect I will be installing DSSCs in 15 years.
Maury
Apparently, right here (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.dyesol.com/ [dyesol.com] . It's not often that you see a tech announcement that is realized so soon, but this seems to be real.
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Look up some prior /. stories. There are some new inexpensive solar cells in production and sale already.
The problem is the factory is booked solid with 100% of production already pre-sold up to 5 years ahead. Big companies made multimillion dollar orders and currently the loans have to be paid off before more factories are built.
The Berry Cell (Score:3, Interesting)
http://nnin.unm.edu/lesson13.pdf [unm.edu]
The interesting part of the Graetzel is that one can use the dye in berry to make
the cell. Interesting and tasty.
Re:The Berry Cell (Score:5, Informative)
http://teachers.usd497.org/agleue/Gratzel_solar_cell%20assets/instructions%20for%20making%20the%20gratzel%20cell.htm [usd497.org]
efficiency factor (Score:1)
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It's far less than 11% in production, closer to 7 to 8. That's not terrible compared to other thin-film approaches however.
Maury
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Why are they rewarding failure? (Score:3)
Finland pays again (Score:4, Interesting)
As a Finnish taxpayer, I'm happy that my government is once again [wikipedia.org] giving my tax money to foreigners, rather than keeping Finnish hospitals going [reuma.fi]. No, really, I'm sure that photovoltaic cells will do a lot of good to us here in the Arctic Circle where the Sun shines a few hours a day most of the year. Really, it's better to spend money on useless shit like this than to treat rheumatic children.
Re:Finland pays again (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Finnish taxpayer, I'm happy that my government is once again [wikipedia.org] giving my tax money to foreigners, rather than keeping Finnish hospitals going [reuma.fi]. No, really, I'm sure that photovoltaic cells will do a lot of good to us here in the Arctic Circle where the Sun shines a few hours a day most of the year. Really, it's better to spend money on useless shit like this than to treat rheumatic children.
Your government has spent loads to subsidize innovation. The Espoo campus (near Helsinki) is brand new, and produces a lot of knowledge which in turn keeps the Finnish knowledge-economy running. Finland is doing quite well because of these investments (it attracts companies).
However, science is an international effort, and it's only fair to award a prize to whoever is the best... And why wouldn't you have some research on solar cells in Finland? It's not like you are actually investing in the production and implementation. It's just research. You can do solar cell research in the basement or any other place where the sun never shines, as long as you have the right equipment.
Of course, healthcare is important. Finnish healthcare is among the best in the world... and already heavily subsidized. Perhaps you found that 1 single example where something went wrong, but the tone of your reply is in contrast with the Finnish reality.
Re:Finland pays again (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Finland pays again (Score:4, Interesting)
> Sun shines a few hours a day most of the year
And 24 hours a day for others. Sure, it's not California, but if we can get a 1/2 reduction in price (totally doable) then it's perfectly economical even in Finland. In the meantime, you need to build infrastructure.
Maury
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"Sure, it's not California, but if we can get a 1/2 reduction in price (totally doable)..."
Hey, our budgets received an enormous amount of money from oil and gas. Now that we get the majority of our power from solar, our budgets are trashed. What do we do?
I know! Heavily tax power generated from solar cells! And solar cell production!
It's the government that's making your energy so expensive.
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Personally, my calculations point out to needing more a 75-80% reduction in price to break even for most people.
Part of the problem is that ancillary equipment alone tends to run you $1-2 per watt.
The inverter, wiring, mounts to hook the panels to a roof, to name the primary ones.
Now, as with anything, as you drop the price, it becomes more economical to more people. First to people in remote areas not hooked to the grid, then to people in southern climates coupled with high electricity costs(california, f
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> The inverter, wiring, mounts to hook the panels to a roof, to name the primary ones.
Panels are 2.30 wholesale in skid quantities.
Inverters are around 65 cents.
Everything else put together is another 50 cents or so.
Panels are, by far, the majority of the material costs. Depending on where you are, overhead and installation is another 25 to 100% of material costs.
> North Dakota would be better off renting land in Nevada and running some long power lines
No way, ND has excellent sunlight. Best-case prod
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Inverters are around 65 cents.
Everything else put together is another 50 cents or so.
And what did I say? Ancillary costs like 'inverter, wiring, and mounts' run $1-2? .65+.50=$1.15, or a third of total equipment costs. $2/watt probably includes some install work.
Yes, panels are the most expensive part of the install. My point was that even if the panels are free that you're looking at quite a long payback.
1 watt of panel, 30% capacity factor('Pretty Sunny' area), will produce around 2.6 kwh a year.
I pay around 10 cents a kwh. So that's 26 cents worth of electricity. If the install ends
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As a Finnish citizen, I guess you're happy with focus on R&D at your place resulting in, say, a company like Nokia contributing quite decent portion of your GDP (maybe even that one contribution covers ongoing gov funding of R&D?). BTW, I'm not sure about this - is Nokia allowed to sell anything at all outside the Finnish borders?
If yes, that could maybe work for solar cells, too... (nvm that I was under the impression of daylight in the Arctic Circle still averaging close to 12h throughout the year
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No, really, I'm sure that photovoltaic cells will do a lot of good to us here in the Arctic Circle where the Sun shines a few hours a day most of the year. Really, it's better to spend money on useless shit like this than to treat rheumatic children.
You're a shortsighted dumbass. There's no other way I can put it. If my country could invest a billion dollars to make North and South Korea get along, I'd vote for it in a heartbeat. Your country is investing a thousandth that to make every place south of you a little saner and you're whining? Finland is part of the world, and spending a rounding-error amount to make that world a nicer place to live seems like a reasonable idea.
Millennium Technology Prize.? (Score:2)
What Millennium are we talking about? The previous Millennium ended nearly 9 and a half years ago (31st Dec 2000), the current Millennium has still over 990 years to run.
Or do the Finns use some other calendar?
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It was named by a marketroid, as big business-related things usually are.
A prize for "someday maybe"? (Score:2)